A mosque in southwest Missouri burned to the ground early Monday in the second fire to hit the Islamic center in little more than a month, officials said.
The fire at the Islamic Society of Joplin was reported about 3:30 a.m. Monday, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office said. The sheriff’s department said the building was a total loss. No injuries were reported and no charges have been filed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D4ZQ9O3JvOQ
Press TV reports from a demonstration in Gennevilliers against the sacking (since withdrawn) of four Muslims workers at a summer camp run by the local authority. They were dismissed on the grounds that their fasting for Ramadan supposedly made them unfit to carry out their duties and they represented a threat to the safety of the young people they were supervising.
Gennevilliers has a Communist mayor, Jacques Bourgoin, who initially supported the sackings, and his position was strongly supported by the far-right Front National who stated: “Those who oppose this wise decision are making a mockery of the principles of safety and secularism.”
Standing for ‘freedom and truth’ in Stockholm – one British thug and two American nutters
A Stockholm rally by European and U.S. far-right groups seeking to create a global “counter-jihad” movement attracted fewer than 200 people on Saturday who were outnumbered by anti-racist protesters. Police said the rival demonstration was kept apart from the far-right rally and drew a few hundred people, a small number of whom were detained.
French Jewish leaders are calling the tossing of two pig heads into a mosque not far from Toulouse “an odious desecration.”
Worshippers at the Salam mosque in Montauban in southern France discovered two pig heads at the entrance to the building yesterday.
The CRIF, the umbrella organization of French Jewish communities, called the incident “an odious desecration” and said it “identifies with the outrage of the Muslim community, which was deeply offended by the act perpetrated during Ramadan.”
The Jewish communities of France convey their “sincerest sentiments of friendship” to the Muslim community, the statement said.
France’s Union of Jewish Students also said in a statement that it was appalled by an incident that had occurred in a “worrying climate of hatred.”
Reuters, Mediaite and Think Progress report on Lou Ann Zelenik’schallenge to incumbent Rep. Diane Black and the role played by Andrew Miller of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition in financing Zelenik’s campaign.
Sal Akhter addresses the meeting
Nearly 200 South Santa Clara County residents attended a planning advisory meeting Tuesday night to voice an impassioned mix of concerns, opposition, support and questions regarding the proposed Cordoba Center mosque project which will be considered by the county’s planning commission Thursday.
County staff began the meeting at the Grange Hall in Morgan Hill by announcing they decided since last week to recommend the planning commission postpone the project due to the high volume of concerns submitted by the public. While last week the staff recommended the commission approve the project when it takes up the issue Thursday, on Tuesday they said they will recommend the body continue the decision in order to allow further studies of the soil permeability and groundwater depth on the 15-acre San Martin site where the South Valley Islamic Center plans to build the Cordoba Center.
But when the meeting turned to the public comment period, in which nearly 30 audience members used their allotted three minutes to voice their objections, support or suggestions for the project, the meeting quickly grew boisterous and, at times, nearly out of control. Attendees shouted in argument from the audience against speakers whom they disagreed with, and applauded loudly with those they supported.
While Sal Akhter, SVIC member and Cordoba Center project manager, spoke as the last public commenter, the audience emitted a loud sustain of disapproval as he demonstrated the existing local presence of Muslim residents and activity in San Martin. Akhter was visibly and vocally upset at the reaction and many of the comments that preceded his, and directed his opinion to the audience rather than the committee.
A mosque will be built on the site of a transport depot after controversial plans were approved last night. Police were on hand to ensure the planning meeting at the civic centre went ahead peacefully, amid fears of protests as tensions ran high over the Millfield proposals.
Since they were announced last year, the plans to convert the transport depot in St Mark’s Road into an Islamic place of worship have attracted 671 letters of objection and a 1,462-signature-strong petition about potential parking and noise problems.
However, applicant Coneil Bashir moved to ease concerns about feared 4am minaret prayer calls and a sudden influx of worshippers to the Sunderland site.
Speaking publicly for the first time about the development, he told councillors and objectors at the meeting: “There will be no public call to prayer. It will be one person and it will be done internally, not outside. The site will serve only those in the Sunderland and Millfield areas and it will not host weddings.”
Waltham Forest has sent a message of defiance to the racist English Defence League (EDL), which plans to march in the east London borough next month.
Over 120 people packed into a We Are Waltham Forest public meeting on Tuesday evening. They pledged to build the biggest possible counter demonstration and to prevent the EDL from taking to the streets.
Speakers included local MP Stella Creasy, Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism, and author Owen Jones. They talked about how the EDL targets areas with Muslim populations and uses its demos to spread hatred and fear.
The Sunday Express has apologised and paid damages to a London school it falsely claimed taught an extreme form of Islam.
Northern & Shell’s Sunday title published a front-page story on 12 June 2011, headlined “Spies in schools to hunt fanatics”, in which it wrongly stated that the King Fahad Academy in Acton, west London, taught extreme Islam. The article, which was also published on the paper’s website, falsely suggested that the academy school had been infiltrated by Islamic fanatics.
Lawsuits, conspiracy theories, super-PACs, and an anti-Islam sugar daddy: This conservative-on-conservative rematch has it all. Tim Murphy reports on Lou Ann Zelenik’s challenge to Diane Black in the Middle Tennessee congressional race.
See also Alex Isenstadt, “Sharia law, super PACs roil GOP primary”, Politico, 29 July 2012